Film I: Genre and Criticism

Session Coordinator: Greg Wright

Dept. of English, Michigan State University

201 Morrill Hall, East Lansing, MI 48824

wrightg2@msu.edu

The Sci-Fi-Action-Thriller-Romantic-Comedy-Buddy Movie: Genre and Non-Progressive Evolution in Ivan Reitman’s Evolution

Although Ivan Reitman has earned a wide fan base for such popular genre-bending comedies as Ghostbusters, Dave, and Stripes, his most recent movie, Evolution, did not succeed according to either critics or audiences. Still, according to the best predictions of Hollywood formulae, it should have worked; Evolution features a celebrity cast, a fast-paced mix of diverse genre elements, and a director/producer with a renowned track record for cranking out crowd-pleasing comedy. Ironically, what went wrong with Evolution can be explained in terms of evolutionary theory. Critics conceive of genre as a pattern among a group of texts, something not defined in the singular, a design framework that corresponds closely to the classification of species, and Evolution presents multiple hybridizations of Hollywood genres and conventions, much like a freak of nature struggling to survive. Because the film focuses on evolution in ideas, genres, and species, this paper applies meme theory as developed by Richard Dawkins, as well as the complexity theory Steven Johnson provides in Emergence. Given the theoretical environment of these two authors, Evolution, while it demonstrates certain principles of emergent evolution, proves that the process of mutation and adaptation does not always lead to individual advancement or collective progress.

Greg Wright

Michigan State University

wrightg2@msu.edu

“That’s what I need to believe”: Atom Egoyan’s Ararat and the Heuristic Potential of “Diaspora”

In his 2002 cinematic exploration of the Armenian Genocide, Ararat, director Atom Egoyan’s decision to alternate meta-narratively between frame and embedded narratives—from current-day Toronto and the filming of a fictive Ararat, to 1915 Armenia and the atrocities of genocide—tends to unite critics only in their desire for the “real” story of the Armenian Genocide. Egoyan’s meditation on intergenerational transposition and transmission demands forms and modes that resist the straightforward in favour of multiple, even competing, registers. The study and theorization of “diaspora,” regardless of whether it aims to deal in clearly delineated, paradigmatic definitions, or explode the boundaries of “definition” altogether (which is itself another definition), by its constitutive nature—that is, as inaugurally concerned with the group—risks privileging the very things it sets out to dismantle, since it is the fervour of classification that leads to genocides in the first place. By showing that history (and, more importantly, the transmission of history) is the mechanism not of epic moments or scenes, or even of material evidence, but rather of the small, intimate moments between individuals, Ararat questions the very necessity, now ninety years later, of a “paradigmatic,” “diasporic” view of the Armenian Genocide.

Janice Morris

Simon Fraser University

janicemorris@shaw.ca

Special Effects and Moving Pictures: From Jason and the Argonauts to Argonautica

Film, as a genre in its own right, continues to be regarded suspiciously by classicists. Their primary concern remains the classical myth or motif: film is interesting only to the extent it represents that prior object. And the commercial aspects of film render it problematic. Discussions of cinema tend to be accompanied by pained justifications for its status as serious scholarship. This paper offers a brief attempt at filmic philology. My test case is not a piece of high art but a Hollywood B-movie: Don Chaffey’s Jason and the Argonauts (1963). This film is a favorite among classicists, who appreciate it for its subject matter, borrowed largely from Apollonius Rhodius’ Argonautica, and for its pioneering use of special effects (pace Ray Harryhausen), which bring Apollonius’ myths “to life.” The appreciation of the classicist would be forced to admit that this is, to put it simply, a bad film. This badness does not make the film less delightful or instructive; on the contrary, I will argue, the particular way in which this film is bad has much to teach us. Indeed, our response to Jason and the Argonauts can serve as a model for reading the Argonautica itself, and by extension Hellenistic literature in general, as essentially proto-filmic art.

Matthew Gumpert

Kadir Has University

gumpert@khas.edu.tr